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The Global Intelligence Files

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry has turned over to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem a
letter from Hamas to President Obama that Kerry had received during his
trip to the Middle East, FOX News has learned.

Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones said the Democratic senator did not
originally know the letter was from Hamas when he accepted it from a
United Nations official.

News that Kerry had relinquished the letter came after the Israeli embassy
and a former Bush adviser on Middle East affairs said Friday that Kerry
should not act as mailman for a group labeled as a terrorist organization
by the United States.

The nature and existence of the letter had been in dispute. A United
Nations relief agency official first confirmed to FOX News on Thursday
that U.N. officials passed on the letter during Kerry's visit to the
Middle East. A Hamas official also told WorldNetDaily that the letter
called for the United States to open dialogue with Hamas, though the
official had not seen the language.

But a Hamas spokesman has publicly denied passing on the letter.

Despite this, Jones said Kerry learned it was from Hamas when the U.N.
official who gave it to him told the BBC. A State Department official
confirmed to FOX News that it was from Hamas and is now under review.

Israeli officials on Friday praised Kerry as a "friend" of the Jewish
state, though they had no information on the letter.

"I do not know that there is a letter, and I do not want to comment on
something I do not know even exists," Israel's Ambassador to the U.S.,
Sallai Meridor, told FOXNews.com earlier Friday.

But Israeli embassy spokesman Jonathan Peled said Kerry should not deliver
any such letter to the president.

"I doubt whether he would give it to Obama," he said, adding there is no
"particular problem" with Kerry accepting the letter.

In question was whether the delivery of such a letter would violate the
United States' policy toward Hamas. Obama has said his administration will
not engage in diplomatic talks with Hamas unless the group renounces
terrorism and affirms Israel's right to exist.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on
Foreign Relations and former Bush adviser, said that such an action by
Kerry would have been over the line.

"He should not be accepting a letter from a terrorist group and he should
not be serving as a mailman for a terrorist group," he said.

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and current chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited the Gaza Strip on
Thursday, along with Democratic Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Keith
Ellison of Minnesota, Congress' only Muslim representative.

The lawmakers were already on a trip to Israel and crossed into the area
dominated by Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish
state. Kerry did not meet with anybody from Hamas, according to Peled.

Peled said Israeli officials had no problem with Kerry's visit to Gaza.

"He's free to do as he pleases," he said.

Meridor, the Israeli ambassador, called Kerry "a close friend of Israel."

"We wish him great success," he said.

At a press conference in Sderot, Israel, Kerry said the Obama
administration's position on Hamas has not changed from the prior
administration. He repeated that stance in Gaza.

"The visit does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas,"
he said.

While in Gaza, the U.N. Relief Works Agency took Kerry on a tour of homes
destroyed in the recent bombing of Hamas targets by Israeli Defense Forces
as well as the American School.

Hamas and Israel have been locked in negotiations brokered by Egypt to
secure a permanent truce in Gaza.

Kerry was scheduled to visit Damascus, Syria, next and meet with President
Bashar Assad. Syrian officials have indicated to FOX News in recent weeks
that Syria is ready to act as an interlocutor with Hamas to help secure a
permanent cease-fire.